


Fear Is Easy, Hope Is Not

by IraBragi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU where they go off on their own and make their own life, Ben learning to human, F/M, Luke is a grumpy old man, Past Abuse, Rey learning to use the force, Snoke is an abuser and Ben has PTSD, They don't smuggle - much, both of them learning to love eachother, bumping around the galaxy getting into trouble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 23:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15302427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IraBragi/pseuds/IraBragi
Summary: “I’m more interested in the idea of Hux and Phasma working together.”Rey snorted, “That has got to be a happy marriage.”“I imagine it’s rather like the time my parents tried painting the guest room together.”  Ben’s voice was dry enough to light paper on fire.  “and I wish them every bit as much success.”They both dissolved into fits of breathless laughter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a similar beginning to my other Reylo story Burn (Rey and Ben strike out on their own) but is not a direct sequel. More like a different take on the same theme.

“I’ll give you a kingdom. Come rule the future with me.”

One moment frozen in time.  Left or right. Make a choice and don’t look back.  What Rey knew was survival, it was what she had always done.  Get away from whatever was trying to kill her today and don’t worry about tomorrow until it comes.  

This wasn’t that.  She could feel it in her bones as she stood across from Kylo Ren (or Ben Solo, or whoever he actually was underneath the scars and the rage and the  _ past _ .)  She could feel the weight of this moment twisting itself around her - around them.  Was this what it meant to walk with the Force? To be able to  _ feel  _ the tipping point between  _ what was  _ and  _ what could be _ .  

Her mind was full; memories, hopes, fears.  All of them colliding together in the moment between one breath and the next.  ( _ Finn’s smile, Leia’s trust, the promise of being part of something as good and grand as the new Jedi order _ ) but there were other things, frightening things, to consider as well ( _ Luke’s anger and fear, his declaration that she was bad, already more dark than light. _ )  Questions.  ( _ If Jedis were keepers of peace then what place did a Jedi have in the war General Organa was fighting?  What would become of her now that Luke would never train her? What would use would she be to to the rebels? _ )  Feelings.  ( _ The past behind her.  The destiny in front of her.  The man beside her, and how alike they were, how much she wanted to believe that there was hope for them both. _ )

“There is no place for us in the future they want.”  He was reaching out for her, just as lost and confused as she was.  “Together we can burn the past, make something new.”

She looked into Kylo’s eyes saw truth.  There was an answer here, they had just been asking the wrong question.  It comes together then, in the blink of an eye, and she could feel the current change.  

What she saw, what Kylo had seen, the force hadn't been wrong - they were going to turn, the both of them, just not in a way that anyone expected.

“Then let’s build our own future.”

\-------------------

They surrendered the First Order to the resistance.  Well, more like they surrendered a half destroyed flag ship, a couple of battalions worth of stormtroopers, and a dozen various generals and staff.  Still it was enough. When Leia first saw them on the bridge the old general’s shoulders slumped for just a moment and she grasped Rey’s hand so hard that her bones creaked.  Rey could see the tear in her eyes. Then she turned to her son.

“Ben.”

“My name is Kylo Ren, I am formally surrendering all…”  There was a flash of hurt in Leia’s expression and then it was gone.  (If it had been her she didn’t know if she could have kept her nerve, Kylo squared his shoulders and didn't blink.)  Three days later they snuck into the hanger and jammed the base tracking systems just long enough to get off planet in a transport shuttle.

\--------------

“Are you sure about this?”  He didn’t look frightened exactly, but it was close.

“No, but what did we have if we stayed?  Over the radio they heard the base tracking systems begin to re-engage, then alarms go off.  Rey had never been so scared in her life. Maybe that was why she grabbed him by the front of his, somehow still perfectly creased, tunic and ground her lips into his until the alarms faded away.  There was no going back now.

\-----------------

Two days after the sabotage and subsequent escape, a different spacecraft radioed the rebel base on Crait.  General Organa herself came to the hanger to meet the new arrival.

“I see that twenty years hasn’t improved your timing.”

“Or your hair.”

The two siblings embraced under the flickering bay lights.

“I’m glad you’re here Luke, there is so much to do.”

\-------------------  

** Three years later: **

“You’re going down this time.”

“Promises, promises.”

They circle each other in the open area in front of their ship.  He’s obnoxiously tall but she can see that he’s favoring his right side after that incident last week (the one with the lizard and the screaming and the tripping over his own feet.  She won’t exploit it - much.) 

They both wear loose pants and and grease streaked tunics.  Practical clothes that had the double advantage of being easy to mend as well as helping to make the two of them forgettable.   _ Just two travelers from nowhere, going nowhere, don’t pay attention to us.   _

Rey shakes her head to make sure that her hair is still securely tied out of the way.  It’s braided then twisted with a dark green ribbon into a loop that sits between her shoulder blades.  It was Ben who had taught her to do the fancy braids. He’s still better at it than her. Somehow his huge hands can work out the worst tangles and settle the stubborn strands into order.  (Although he swears it’s just that she has “the patience of a Tullrianian jumping fly.” But then his voice goes soft and he adds, “besides I’ve had a lot of practice.” so she lets him braid away to his heart’s content and doesn't say a word when he cuts his own hair short with a pair of old scissors from the toolbox.)

The ship behind them is even older and dustier than their clothes.  It’s the ship that brings them to this port, located on a out-of-the-way trading port, today.  Tomorrow they are going to find out if their potential buyer will come through or not.    

Crack.  The first blow comes fast and wide from his shorter weapons.  While she still loves her staff Ben had put off finding a weapon for himself for a long time.  His lightsaber was broken and her saber, technically Luke’s old one, was tucked away safely in her bags.  Even if either one of them wanted to use it, it would have drawn far too much attention. She deflects and counter-strikes, aiming her staff for his ribs, only to find air as he drops back and shifts his stance.

“Not bad.  Now, why can’t you to pay this much attention when it’s your turn to pump the waste tanks?”  

Then one day while they were stranded planetside for repairs, he came back from shopping for dinner with two short sticks.  They were both about a foot and a half long and maybe two inches in diameter, some sort of hardwood that had been painted with geometric designs.  Escrima sticks, he called them, an uncommon weapon but one that could be wielded with devastating precision. “I used to… I know how to use them a bit.”  They start sparring in ernest the next day.

Her taunts don’t rattle him much if the grin he gives her is anything to go by.  Another quick movement and he makes contact with her shoulder.

“Keep talking sweetheart, I’m winning.”  Even with a controlled strike she winces and shakes her arm, pinning him with a glare.

“You’ll pay for that  _ sweetheart _ ”  They trade blows and insults until she feins to the right, only to reverse her grip and sweep the staff across the back of his legs.  Ben’s knees buckle and she is on top of him in a heartbeat, staff poised over his throat - only to stumble as he uses a surprising amount of dexterity for such a large person to roll out of the way.  They both resume their original positions, trying to shake off the hits and gauge what the other will do next.

Strike, spin, block, fein, strike, advance.  There is no more breath for teasing. This is the part she loves with all her heart.  It’s a dance they have perfected between the two of them and they know every step by heart; equal parts brutality and trust.

They have attracted a small audience; a few children and some dogs, an older man in the middle of shopping with his droid, two women who seem to be drunk and betting on the outcome.  There is a short man with grey streaked hair standing at the back of the crowd that she keeps almost catching out of the corner of her eye but Ben is moving now and Rey focuses her attention fully back to the match

She has the longer reach and can set the pace, but he can trap her staff and push her off balance with his blocks.  When it happens it’s almost too fast to see. She steps forward into his space and brings the staff down behind his crosses sticks, pinning them together, suddenly too close for him to effectively counter.  She repeats the leg sweep from before, only with her foot rather than her weapon. She can see the moment on his face when Ben realises that he is falling. He uses his momentum to pull her down as well but she is expecting that and he finds an elbow at his throat.

“I yield.”  She stands and pulls him up as well.  “You always get me with that trick.”

“It's not…”  Rey’s words are cut off.  

“Good show, good show!  I do wonder if it would be more or less impressive if everyone else realized that you could both be blindfolded and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference?  Yes? No? Surprised to see me?” The people who had begun to drift away turn and stare. The grey bearded man, pushes himself up from the wall he was leaning against and walks forward, dramatically clapping his hands.  No, it couldn't be...

“Remember when we agreed to let the past go?”  Ben’s voice sounds calm, humorous even, but she can feel the tension radiating off of him.  He steps forward, putting himself between the her and the newcomer. She moves to his side, half a step back to cover their rear, even as her mind still tries to process the spike of panic that’s working it’s way down her spine.  It’s been so long, they had worked so hard to disappear, how the hell did he find them now? 

“Well, I forgot just how annoying the past is.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Three years before:**

He wasn’t supposed to be gentle.  

They were sitting in the shuttle as they came out of their first jump, both staring out of the window as if you could still see the salt planet they had just fled if you looked hard enough.  The silence was oppressive, and she could still taste his lips from the first kiss, and all she could think was that she didn’t want to think anymore. 

His lips were warm and soft the second time and she let him pull her into his lap.  His hands felt huge against against her ribs but he kept them gentle, pulling her closer but not grabbing, not trying to pull her apart.

When she had imagined this she had expected a battle.  Passion and possession and all the smoldering promise that had burned between them since they first laid eyes on eachother.  Instead they curled into each other and let their shared warmth drive away everything else for a little while. That night she dreamed.  

\--------------

At first he was too busy to think.  There was the panic of escaping, and the constant worry of being recognised.  Then, after they traded the stolen rebel ship for a bucket of rust and sparking wires, there was the constant battle to keep it flying (and preferably not dying in the process.)  So, for awhile, he hardly had time to sleep, let alone reflect on the past. But as the weeks wore on, and the newness of everything wore off, and the ship began to  _ almost  _ work  _ most  _ of the time, there was nothing to distract him.

Kylo Ren, supreme leader of the First Order, ruler of the galaxy.  He had spent most of his life waiting to take that mantle. He had fought, killed, obeyed orders that made his skin crawl, had given orders, had done things… and when he had it all in the palm of his hand, he had walked away...

He craned his head to peer around the doorframe (the door itself had been so rusted that they called it a lost cause and scraped it.)  Rey had pulled up the floor panels in the cargo bay to try and find the short that had been plaguing them for a week. If the blinking overheard lights and impressively creative (and blisteringly profane) commentary coming from crawl space was any indication, it was not going well.  

He sighed and wrapped the food back up and put it in the cooler.  Lunch would have to wait.

Rey.  The easy answer would be to say he did it for her.  That he did it for love, gave up everything to follow her.  It wasn’t even untrue. But it also wasn’t the whole truth.

\-------------

The first night on the run she dreamed of Jakku.  Only instead of actually being there she was standing in the pit on the Jedi island and watching her homeworld thought the mirror.  In the vision she was standing on the edge of the desert. 

As she watched time sped forward, dunes rose and fell, and the sun burned its way across her cheeks.  In her dream a lifetime passed just standing there, surrounded by the heat and sand, the only person in her world.

When she woke up Kylo was already awake and working on something in the engine.

\--------------   

“You know “Kylo Ren” is kinda a mouthful, I could call you something else if you wanted.  She phrased it casually but he understood exactly what she was asking.

“Ben is fine.”  He pushed the answer off his tongue before had time to think better of it.  He wasn’t the same person as who he had been the last time he had been called “Ben.”  Honestly he couldn't even remember who Ben Solo-Organa had been any more. But then again he wasn’t Kylo Ren anymore either so maybe it didn’t matter either way.  Rey smiled anyway.

“Come on then Ben let’s get this ship one more step closer to not killing us.” 

\----------------

He didn’t have the courage to ask Rey why she chose this, chose him.  She was angry with the rebellion, and furious with Luke, he had sensed that much.  But why? Why give the rebellion a backhanded victory then run instead of staying to be lauded as a hero?  Why bring him along at all? He had said “burn the past” but but it was still here, inside of him, making him… 

His thoughts spun out of control and the ship walls began to feel like they were closing in on him.  Crushing the breath out of his chest. Across the ship he could hear Rey muttering darkly about the parentage of whoever designed these circuits.  When had she become the most solid thing in his world?

\---------------

Rey had really hoped that they could just keep on going; work hard, keep one step ahead of the authorities, and somehow it would all work out.  But right now it wasn’t the authorities that worried her most.

The ship was slowly coming together.  They had visited a few junkyards, done some odd jobs, and it was alright - really it was - but Kylo… Ben wasn’t alright.  Rey figured that maybe she wasn’t particularly alright either, but she wasn’t the one who refused to go to sleep then woke up choking back screams when they did nod off.

More often than not he wouldn't even sleep in the same bunk as her.  While he was awake Ben was quiet but she could feel him pushing himself, doing the work of two, and watching her with an expression she didn’t understand.  

Rey understood engines and mechanics.  She knew how to haggle for supplies and she was pretty good at finding traders who didn't ask questions and made it a practice not to remember their customer's faces.  This, frankly, was beyond her. 

\----------------

The nightmares started a few weeks in.  

Twenty years; that was how long Snoke had lived in his mind.  No corner untouched, no though not shaped by the old man’s ever probing fingers.  Even now, even after he had cut the bastard’s body in two with his own blade, he could still feel those fingers.  Scratching, prying, dripping honeyed praise and subtle commands. Twenty years.

\-----------------

“Ben, BEN, wake up!”  They were on a planet (well, technically the moon of a planet) and camping outside, underneath the shade of the ship.  The idea was that it would be slightly cooler out there with an occasional breeze then inside where the coolant system had decided to stop working.  

Rey’s face was inches from his when his eyes snapped open.  Her face mixing into the dream images. An endless bridge, shrieking dark forms, his lightsaber that wouldn't turn on, chains closing around his limbs…  His hand was up and he could hear the air rush out of her throat even as his brain came online enough to realize what he was doing.

There wasn’t even a mark on her skin yet to show where he had force-choked her, just her wide eyes and gasping breath.

“I’m sorry!  I didn’t...” She’s standing there, not three feet away, but in his mind she’s unmoving on the ground.  He knows what it looks like, how someone fights for air until they go limp… He’s felt it too. Snoke liked to “demonstrate” the correct technique when Ben was slow to grasp something.

“I’ll go...”

He stumbles to the ship, grabs a bag.  Thinks wildly that it’s not like he has a lot of stuff to pack.  This still feels like the dream, except he knows that it isn't.

“So you’re leaving too.”  He turns around and she’s staring at him, her fingers rubbing absently at her neck, her face flat and hard.  He stands there frozen, until she growls something unintelligible and stomps past him. It’s only then that he realizes that his hands are shaking.   

\----------------

She wasn’t supposed to still be alive.  Starved to death on Jakku, shot out ot of the sky for being a rebel, or killed for not being what the rebels wanted.  Maybe even killed by the man in front of her. How it happened didn’t matter, didn’t even really scare her any more. What scared her was being alone.  Being abandoned again.

“You deserve more than someone who hurts you.”  He had followed her over to the bunk and knelt down beside her, took her hand between his.  It was the most they had touched in weeks. “I don’t ever want to hurt you Love.” He bites his lip, and she thinks that he hadn’t meant for the last part to slip out.

It’s probably wrong, but she’s not too proud to use what she has.  She brushes her fingers across his cheek. “Then don’t leave.” He nods.

\---------------

He had to talk to her.  Had to explain. The problem was that he didn’t have the first idea of what to say.  As usual the universe was laughing at him when it decided to solve the problem first.

\---------------

It wasn’t the worst day in her life but it wasn’t really one of the better ones either.  The ropes are tight enough that she can’t feel her fingers anymore and the way Ben is favoring his left side and breathing slowly makes her think that the stubborn bastard’s ribs are broken.  Serves him right too.

“How was I supposed to know that they are immune to mind tricks?”  Even tied up and beat to a pulp he is annoying. Rey carefully holds onto her irritation, it’s that or panic.

“We could have tried  _ not  _ getting involved in a civil war to begin with!” she hisses back, “And you shouldn’t be using the force stuff anyway!  We are trying to keep a low profile!”

He carefully shifts as if to get closer to her but the ropes are still as tight as they were two minutes ago.  “It’s not a war, just a small dispute of ownership.”

“They are killing each other and think we are spies, I’d call it a war!”  

“A war requires separate armed groups with…”

“Like I said; bunch of people, really bad attitudes, want to use us as punching practice - war.”

They were both tied to rings that had been sunk into the floor of the cell.  Seeing as they were weaponless and locked in a metal room Rey though that the ropes were a bit overkill.  On the other hand they  _ had  _ been caught with a shipment of, apparently  _ very important _ mining equipment, that had  _ apparently  _ been stolen.  Then proceeded to knock out a dozen or so of the of their attackers before fifty more had swarmed them.  It was all rather a mess. 

\--------------

He should have known better.  If the guards hadn't already done such a fine job of it themselves Ben would be kicking himself for missing the signs.  They didn’t smuggle. Not  _ really  _ anyway.  But when a local had approached them at their last stop and asked if they could “take her and some freight to a nearby satellite outpost” if had seemed harmless enough.  She offered good money, half upfront, and spun a story about farming equipment and avoiding “silly little tax laws.” 

It wasn’t that he hadn't suspected that she was up to no good, it was just that he really hadn’t expected to be met by blaster fire and shouting about “ours first” and “kill the spies!” the second they touched down.  (If they were spies they were darn poor ones considering how unstealthy their approach had been.) It also didn’t help that their client, whoever they were, had slipped away in the confusion leaving Rey and him to the tender mercies of the a very pissed off group of “liberators.”  And to top it all off, these folks had bricks for brains. Single-minded, and they just got more pissed off by any attempts at force persuasion. 

\--------------

“Do you think they are going to kill us before or after they do their best to beat the names of the other sipes out of us?” 

As far as Rey could tell the dispute seemed to be between two group of locals who both claimed ownership a local mine.  Apparently the mine had long been a point of contention and the situation had recently gone from tense to bloody. How the shipment that they had flown in was involved was unclear.  

Just gathering that much background information had been difficult as everyone they had seen so far had been more interested in demanding that they “stop playing dumb, or we’ll make it very unpleasant for you and your stupid friend.”  (By which they meant Ben, who didn’t understand the concept of “we’re outnumbered 50 to one, stop fighting,” in the least.) 

“I’ll get you out somehow.”  It was at least the tenth time he had apologised and it was getting on her nerves.

“Instead of being sorry why don’t you try to getting us out of here.”  She had meant it rhetorically but the hurt look on his face and hiss of pain as he tried to twist his hands around again told her that he had taken it seriously.

“Stop it, just sit still and don’t hurt yourself more!”  They both settled back into uncomfortable silence. 

“Tell me a story.”  It was a dumb thing to say but he needed to stop before he dislocated his shoulders and she needed something to focus on that wasn’t how much her arms hurt.

Years ago on Jakku she had explored an old crashed ship that was half buried in sand.  She was the only one small enough to squeeze inside, so they sent her down with only a light and the sneering suggestion to “don't’ get trapped, cause we’re not gonna come get you.”  A nest of bats had made the wreck their home and when she flashed her torch they had startled, flapping and falling and bumping into each other in their panic. The look Ben was giving her right now reminded her of those bats.      

“You know a story, something that happened at some point.  Maybe true, maybe not. Surely you are familiar with the concept?”  He twists at the ropes one more time then huffs a sigh of resignation and nods.

“The first time I met Snoke I didn’t even realize that he was a force user, let alone a Sith.”

\------------

Well, “we’re probably going to die in the next few hours” is as good a reason as any to spill his guts, right? And there was some small part of his brain that kept whispering, “if you tell her the truth then at least she won’t grieve for you when you’re gone.”  Where even to start though? He could start with Snoke, but really it began long before that.

People loved to tell him that he was lucky to have parents who were destined for eachother.  As long as he could remember he had known the story of how his parents met by heart. How the brave princess and the daring space pilot had saved the galaxy and fallen in love.  By the time he was six he also knew how to tell if a slamming door signaled the beginning or the end of an argument.

“I was running away.”  Han had made a trip back home for his tenth birthday.  Of course, technically it was his father’s home too, but Han Solo was a busy man.  There was always something for the best pilot in the galaxy to be doing. Somewhere that was far away from him and his mother.

“Uncle Luke announced that he wanted me to come and study with him to be a Jedi and my parents were arguing about it.”  

He doesn't have a lot of memories from back then.  Maybe it’s a side effect of Snoke’s influence or maybe he’s just broken.  He remembers his uncle teaching him how to meditate though, how boring he found sitting still, but he liked the proud smile that Luke gave him when he tried.  There were other things too, pushing blocks over, making leaves fly. When he saw them practicing, father would grumble and say something about how “being second mate of the best ship around was more than enough for any man.”  He’d ruffle Ben’s hair then and show him how to steer the ship and read star charts (Ben had known how to set a course by heart before he could even read common.) 

Those were the good things.  The other things he remembers from  _ before,  _ well those he wishes he could forget.

“I always had a temper I guess.  Mother said that it would be for the best if I actually learned how to control my abilities.”  She had used the words “learn to control your abilities” but her glare meant “until you learn to control  _ yourself _ .”  Shattered dishes, screaming arguments, the time he pushed a boy at school without touching him.  Whispers that adults though he couldn't hear about “history repeats itself” and “what do you expect… related to  _ him _ .”  Everything was just  _ so much  _ sometimes.

“They sent me out of the room so hid in the hallway and they kept shouting over each other.”  He could still hear his mother’s clipped tone, “It’s not like you are ever here to help raise him.”  Han’s sneering rejoinder about how would she know, since her secretary saw more of her than either her husband or son did. “Oh you're my husband now are you?  I thought that was just too much effort for you to manage any more.” Luke’s quiet tone, trying to placiate them both. “He’s just young, he doesn't have the control to know what he’s doing.”

There was a crash and a swear and then his father’s voice again, “There’s enough of this foolishness in this family already.  You’ll turn the boy into his damm grandfather!” At that point Ben’s legs made the choice for him and by the time the tears had worked their way down his cheeks and he could see again, he was three blocks away from the house.  He took one look over his shoulder then kept running.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to talk about it.”  Rey’s voice was soft and Ben realized that he’d drifted off.

“No, it’s fine, there isn’t really much more to tell.  By the time it started to get dark I was completely lost and in a bad part of the city.”  He remembers how tired his legs felt and how big the shadows looked. “I guess there was something about me that called to him even then because I was sitting on some steps and trying to figure out what to do next when this man came up and asked me… he asked me if I needed any help.”

Ben didn’t think that he’d ever be glad to see a man with a blaster and a very bad attitude come marching around the corner towards their cell but right then it was close.

\---------------  

A week later Rey wasn’t sure what she was more exasperated with, Ben or the clock on the dashboard that had slowed to a  _ crawl _ .  It turned out that three broken ribs and what was probably a concussion didn’t actually keep Ben in bed and out of the way, it just made him doubly bull headed and stubborn.

“I’m fine Rey.  It’s not like I haven’t had worse.”  She sighed because, judging by the number of scars littered across his chest and back, he was probably telling the truth.  Some of them had the clean edges and length of a lightsaber wound, but others were twisted and  _ deep _ .  Granted she didn’t know much about either Sith or Jedi training but they looked more like a mauling from a rancor, or a knotted bantha whip, than anything you should get while learning to lift things with your mind.  Rey had the feeling that if she asked, she would need to hunt Snoke down and kill him all over again. Instead she just pulled the bandages tighter and made sure that Ben took at least  _ some  _ of his pain meds. 

It must be the boredom.  After they had gotten back to their ship and made a hasty departure from the planet ( _ let them keep their damn war _ ) they had charted a course for a trading port a weeks flight away.  Between low fuel and an asteroid belt that made a hyperjump risky they had decided to take the long way there.  The ship was behaving for once and there was nothing major broken or even threatening to break. It should be nice to just relax, but to Rey it felt like the seconds had turned into insects.   Currently they were crawling along her spine, digging underneath her skin, driving her insane - all of which probably contributed her lack of patience with Ben.

“If you don’t sit down right now I will break the rest of your ribs.”

“That would rather defeat your goal.”  Damn that man! Instead she settled for rubbing her temples and aggressively spinning her chair toward the wall.

“What did Luke say?”

The question was spoken so softly that she almost missed it - then once it registered she considered pretending that she had.

“Why?”  She kept her voice controlled and her chair pointed toward the wall.  There was an interesting smudge in the paint. If you look hard enough it almost looked like a…

“We’ve done a pretty good job of keeping out of sight but sooner of later…”  Rey sighed, that’s not the reason he asked and they both know it. She opened her mouth anyway.

“He was so afraid.”  Ben snorted at that and, even with her back turned, she can picture the way his lips twist in disbelief.  “I don’t mean afraid for himself, exactly. He was terrified by what we can do - what the force can do. He saw me and he told me I was too powerful, too dark.”  Slowly she turned her chair, looked him in the eye. “He said I was too much like you.”

Ben’s face does something complicated at that, sadness and regret and anger, all mixed in one.  “and I knew that if I stayed that it was only a matter of time until I frightened them too.” She closed the distance between them, with him sitting she’s actually taller for once.  “I’m not good Ben. I just wanted a way out.”

His eyes never leave hers as he reached a hand up to cup her cheek, “me too Rey.  Me too.”

\---------------------

A way out.  A way to something better.  Wasn’t that what everyone wanted?  The difficulty was that finding that way out never ended up being as simple as it sounded.  

When he killed Snoke, Ben thought that it was over, he won.  When Rey chose him and they escaped the rebel base, he thought that the hardest part was behind them.  Later after the nightmares went from every night to only some nights, he hoped that it was finally getting better.

It turned out that if you wanted a happy ending you have to earn it.  One day at a time, one choice at a time. 

(Also, you had to hope that Rey was in a forgiving mood when you were forced to admit that you might -  _ possibly  _ \- have agreed to marry the local headwoman’s granddaughter.  Look, you don’t speak more than ten words of the language, and it’s not your fault if you nodded when she asked you something, and… maybe we should just leave this system.” 

\--------------------

“.. you heard him...”

“... well if you could just control…”

“...my fault!?  Let’s not forget…”

“You aren’t the supreme leader of the bloody universe anymore!”  Rey couldn’t remember the last time she had been this furious. “You don’t get your way, you don’t talk back, you do the job and get paid and…”

Ben didn't go down in a fight.  She’d watched him take down  _ Snoke  _ for goodness sake.   He didn’t take a bat to the skull and crumple to the floor because a loudmouth fool pushed the wrong button.

“He was…”

“You’re nobody now, just like the rest of us!”  Her words rang louder than a blaster shot but she wouldn’t back down.  One of these days he was not going to get back up fast enough, one of these days he was going to get himself killed.  It’s Ben who looked away first.

“I didn't touch his mind” it came out mumbled, his split lip blurring the words.

\-----------------    

“I didn't touch his mind.”  It sounds pathetic even to him.  He’d still ruined the job, put their lives in danger, brawled like an idiot, and gotten his face kicked in to boot.  They needed to leave before the port master got over his broken kneecap enough to call the authorities on them. Particularly as Ben knew that they would show in the database as wanted fugitives - probably worth a nice reward as well.

Rey stood there glaring at him for another moment then turned heel and marched away.  Ben stared at his bloody knuckles. He can fight, he can fight  _ extremely well _ , but when the opponent has six arms and a very big club they’re bound to get a hit in eventually.         

Anger.  He could feel it boiling through him, tearing at his neves, trying to push free.  He had always been angry; at his parents, at the way people looked at him and either saw the next generation of his mother’s crusade or someone destined to be his grandfather all over again, at Luke who wanted an apprentice more than Ben himself.  The person he had always been most angry with though, was himself.

Pathetic, useless, failure.  Waste of his lineage.

Then Snoke gave him something he had never had before - power.  Kill the past. Anger, power, control. At first he told himself that he would only hurt people who hurt him, but he soon enough made a lie of that too.  He liked it, and hated it, and didn’t see any other way. 

Anger is easy.  This was not.

It wasn’t easy to keep his head down and and listen to the fool who was paying them half of what the job was worth to fix a maintenance crane.  Or ignore the way he eyed Rey. Or bite his tongue when the bastard thought that being big and mean meant that he could push them around, get in Ben’s face and say things…

“Here.  Cold will help the lip.”  Rey passed him a wet towel.          

“I’m sorry.”  

“Me too.”  Their eyes met.  She stands on tiptoe to grab his chin to take a closer look at his lip and quickly-forming black eye and smiled wryly at his yelp of pain. 

“You were doing alright until he got you with that bat.  You sure are going to have one heck of a bruise.”

_ You’re so much stronger than me _ , he thought,  _ so much better at this _ .

She lets him go and turns toward the front of the ship, “come on, we better get out of here.”  She’s three steps ahead then she paused and half-turns, “besides if you hadn't decked the bastard, I would have.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Present:**

“Are you here to kill us yourself Uncle, or just drag us back and let the General do it for you?”  They have been glaring at each other for a solid two minutes. Even the children who had been watching seem to grasp that this was not a place that they wanted to be and had moved on in search of less fraught entertainment.  Finally the Luke breaks the tension with a hearty laugh.

“After watching that?  I’d be lucky to survive one of you.  Both of you together? Contrary to popular opinion and all common sense, I’m not ready to die quite yet.”  He nods toward the ship, “Care to offer an old man something to drink?”

\------------------------------

**Two years earlier:**

When Luke had arrived at the rebel base, he found it in a state of panic over too many prisoners, too many escaped prisoners, and too few supplies.  He had done what he could to help. Leia forgave him like he knew she would. In truth it had been her forgiveness not her anger he had run from to begin with.  Of course she had been less forgiving of his twenty year disappearing act. He stayed with them for a few months, long enough that they weren’t a rebellion any more.  They were the Allied Republic of Planets now. They had a handful of planets working with them and Leia was negotiating with half a dozen others to try to set up diplomatic ties.  

The plan was simple, the ex-rebels would defend their allies from the First Order, as well as the splinter groups that had broken away from the old power structure, and in return the planets would offer supplies and infrastructure.  The goal was to rebuild an elected governing structure. A senate was being formed. It was all very good and oficial and Luke wanted... well he didn't know what he wanted. He had left the Skywalker name behind him once already and when he came back he thought it was to fight one more battle and finally be free, not to build a new federation.  It was Leia who saw through him, like she always had, and told him to go.

“Go find my son.”   

Officially, he was in pursuit of two wanted fugitives, criminals against the Alliance.  He has seen Leia’s hand shake when she sighed that order. What she needed to do as a general and what she still hoped as a mother were very different things.

What he hadn't counted on was how damm hard it is to find a couple of needles in a galaxy of a haystack.

\----------------

The old man had set up shop just outside of the city wall in the back of a cart that had probably been ancient when he was a boy.  As they approached Rey had whispered that he likely came from one of the nearby slum districts to sell the odds and ends that his family had made or gathered.

“Look at his hands, once you’re too old for regular work it’s a way to keep useful.”  The man’s hands were twisted, the joints swollen to the point that he could barely close them let alone hold something for any length of time.  Ben knew that there were at least ten different procedures that could be done to ease the man’s pain, likely even restore function, but not out here and not without the credits.  

Life on the outer rim was a far cry from the luxury he had grown up with.  Even the first order, which was not luxurious by any stretch, was efficient and fully equipped.  In Ben’s old world people had died because of a blaster shot or a ship going down, not of worn away joints and malnutrition.  Regardless the old man flashed them a wide smile as they came close.

“I’ve got sweets!  Buy your lady friend some sweet cakes.”  He thrust a sticky package at them. “Is he your husband?”  He winks as Rey and whispers conspiratorially, “better tie that one one down, he looks at you right.”  A sage nod, “you can always tell when a man’s in love. It’s in his eyes.”

Ben was pretty sure that his face was the same color red as the strange knobby fruit that the man was selling but Rey just laughed.  “How much for those socks?”

The two of them haggled for a bit and eventually came to a price they could agree on.  Ben had mostly tuned out of the conversation when something caught his ear.

“...said they were collecting taxes but it was more like stealing anything they could get their grubby hands on and looking for recruits.  Said they’d take anyone with a working body, which counts me right out fortunately. Anyway some fellow Hacks? Hux? Some name with a big title in front of it.  Anyway they said he's in charge now.” He lowers his voice to a sneering whisper, “I’m not sure what kind of emperor needs scrap ships and honest folks’ livelihood but that’s the empire for you.”

Rey keeps her face impressively calm.  “Was there a lot of trouble?” The man raised his hands in a gesture of resignation.

“Not so much.  This was two, almost three, short-cycles ago.  We’ll manage, we always do.” Rey hands over the credits and starts to turn away then the man adds, “stormtroopers are bad enough but that big one, with the shiny armor” he shudders, “Emperor whatever-his-name-is better watch his back is all I can say.”          

\----------------------

The walk back to their ship was quiet.  The minuet they are safely inside Rey kicked the door hard enough to feel the sting all the way up her shin.

“Two short-cycles!  We might as well have walked up to their doorstep and said hello!”  Ben stepped behind her, wraps his arms around her. “It’s a big galaxy, they have bigger things to worry about than us.”

She leaned back.  He felt so solid. When had she gotten so used to this?  To having someone to worry with, to work beside, and lean on?  

“We always knew the rebels weren’t going to be able to keep Hux locked up for long.” Ben ran his fingers through her hair and despite the situation she felt the tension in her neck easing.  “I’m more interested in the idea of Hux and Phasma working together.”

Rey snorted, “That has got to be a happy marriage.”

“I imagine it’s rather like the time my parents tried painting the guest room together.”  Ben’s voice was dry enough to light paper on fire. “and I wish them every bit as much success.”

They both dissolved into fits of breathless laughter.

\-------------------------

“How do you use the force?”

It’s late and they are curled up together in bed.  Rey was idly running her fingers across his chest, stopping to trace scars as she finds them.  The feeling was calming, almost meditative. At her voice Ben pulls himself up and looks at her questiongly.

“You’ve used it before.”  She shrugs.

“Not like you.  Not properly. I feel things.  I feel you mostly,” she smiles and drops a kiss on his shoulder,  “but other things too. It’s not the same though. I want to understand.”

Part of him had always known that this was coming, another part had hoped that she would never ask.  He knew her too well for that though. The fact that she had waited this long was probably out of kindness to him.

“Are you sure you want to ask  _ me  _ about how to use the force.  I’m not exactly...” 

He still uses some things.  The reflexes, the way he just  _ knows _ sometimes, the ability to read most people; that isn’t conscious it’s just a fact of having his blood.  Rey is the same, whether she fully realizes it or not. He won’t try to control anyone’s mind who isn’t trying to kill them though, and even then he tries not to.  Other things he won’t do at all; some because they are too likely to draw attention, others because he can still see Snoke’s smile when he went a little too hard in practice, actually harmed the other student.      

“And who else exactly am I going to ask?”  Ben sighs, she is going to win this and she knows it. 

“I still remember some of the things Luke taught me.”

She sits up, pushes her hair back out of her eyes, looking very serious.  “I trust you.” She means it. He can feel it through their bond, no doubt, no hesitation.  Trust isn’t even the right word. To Rey it’s a fact. Sand is hot, the ship will break again, and he will not hurt her.

He wants to argue with that trust.  Tell her that it’s so very undeserved… but there is nothing he could say that she hasn’t already seen for herself.  All he can do is vow to himself, once again, that he will never break that trust. 

“We can start tomorrow.”  

“Good.”  Her smile is brighter than any star and Ben can’t think of a single reason not to lean in and kiss that sunshine off her lips.

\-----------------

They found a forgotten corner of a small planet to work.  The land was covered in golden grass as tall as her waist and with each step she could feel the plants sway and whisper.  The prairie stretches out endlessly until it disappeared into the horizon. It reminded her of a desert, only without the heat and desperation.  The first time she felt a mouse’s heart beating next to her she almost jumped out of her skin. 

“Everything has the force in them.  That is the one thing everyone agrees on.”  It was strange to hear Ben repeating the same words that Luke had spat at her a just over two years ago.  “The first thing you have to learn is to calm your mind enough to hear the force around you.” 

It was hard to put into words, how it felt to listen with your whole body, not just your ears.  How she just could just  _ know  _ that there was a mouse scampering home with his belly full of seeds to her left, how she could feel the soil beneath her feet, the skeleton of a bird half-buried to her right.  Rey hated meditation, trying to sit still just gave her a headache, but this she could do. She could walk and  _ listen _ .

“You can do powerful things with the force.  You can shape the world...” Ben looked at his hands, “Luke told me once that what you see when you close your eyes is who you really are.”  Personally Rey though that if everything you had to remember at night was happy and pretty then you were probably rich, and a fool to boot.

That night she came home with sunburn on her cheeks and a snake wrapped around her wrist.  Ben was… less than enthusiastic about her new friend.

\---------------

Some things were easy to teach Rey.  She had the raw power, it was control that took time.  They practiced picking up pebbles and throwing them at a target.  Moving to bigger and bigger objects. Sensing what was around them.  Rey was good at “seeing” through the force. Even with her blindfolded and him using every trick he knew he could hardly get a hit in when they spared.

Other things he didn't know how to even put into words, let alone teach.  “Luke said that when we die we go back into the force. Strong force users can remain in this world as pure manifestations of force.  They can watch and even talk to the living.” 

He had never seen Darth Vader.  Snoke had told him that his grandfather would appear to him when Ben fully embraced his destiny, stamped out the last of his doubt.  But there had been moments when Ben was almost convinced that his grandfather was there anyway. Like the time that he had tried to go behind Snoke’s back and… well, the fact that he was still alive meant that someone had been watching over him.

“What even was in the Jedi temple anyway?”  Rey was holding three wrenches in the air and making it look annoyingly easy.

“Some old books, a painting on the floor, a cave that made you see things.”  One of the wrenches spun precariously then dropped, causing Rey to curse and drop the other two.  She gave him a dirty look and he winked at her.

“Too bad you didn’t grab the books.”

“I was kinda busy saving you from yourself at the time.”  She scrunches her face with effort and manages to re-lift the wrenches then sent them swinging straight towards his head.

“Careful!”  He dogged and was met with an utterly unrepentant grin.

“Why am I teaching you again?  All you do is harass me and bring home slimy things.”

“Oh I’m harassing you?”  She floats the wrenches back to the toolbox and sets them down without so much as a clatter then turns on him.  It’s the same movement as a big cat stalking its prey. “I thought harassing you was when I did this,” she tangled her hands in his shirt and drags him down until they are nose-to-nose.  “Or this,” her lips ghost across his. The back of his knees hit the edge of the pilot’s chair and give away. “Or maybe this.” Her hands are pushing his shirt open while her tongue devours his mouth.  He almost whimpers when she braced a hand against his chest and pulls away.

“And snakes are not slimy.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Present:**

Eventually Ben shrugs, “Might as well invite him in, he’s not going to leave otherwise.”  He turns and walks toward the ship’s ramp, Rey hesitates for a second longer, then frowns and steps aside for Luke to enter.

“Nice ship, reminds me of…”

“WHAT DO YOU WANT old man?”  There is fury in Ray’s voice and no fear in her eyes.  Ben thinks, for far from the first time, that had she had any more training or any less hesitation to kill the first time they fought he would have never made it out alive.

“Can’t a man just want to visit his…”  Luke starts, then seems to realise the ridiculousness of what he’s saying and finishes his sentence with a bitter laugh.  “You’re not making this easy you know.”

\----------------

Luke could still taste the ash from the night Rey left the island.  His best friend was dead, his sister off fighting an endless war, and fate seemed determined to drag every mistake he had ever made out just to watch him repeat them all over again.  Rey was gone and Ben... 

It’s easy to think about light and dark when they are words on a page, and abstract philosophy - not so much when it’s your nephew, the closest thing to a son you ever had.  The boy who you held on your lap and taught to listen to the force. The boy who you took and molded… He had thought so many things, dreamed so many things.

He remembered what he had asked Yoda that night.

“What do I do now?”

“Now live or die you must.”  

Privately Luke wondered how the diminutive sage had managed 900 years of life.  Someone that annoying usually gets themselves strangled before their first century.  The chuckle from beside him left Luke with the uncomfortable feeling that Yoda knew exactly what he had been thinking.  They had sat and watched the fire rage on. 

“Now I live or die.”

\------------------

**One year ago:**

Rey didn’t much care for children.  They were small and loud and had to be fed.  She had seen too many women crying over lost children (and even more cursing those they still had.)  Or just abandoned their children completely. It wasn’t a painful subject, just a numb sort of fact. She figured that she had no right to bring a child into the harshness that was her world.  

Then she had become a fugitive running from both sides of a war with, quite possibly, the only other person who everyone hated more than her.  Not to mention whatever her force sensitivity would do to a child… and then there was Ben... 

They had never talked about children directly.  Ben had brought it up once, awkwardly, not long after they first started sleeping together.  Something about how, “they should be careful because it wouldn’t be good to, you know…” She had laughed and shot back that he didn’t need to worry she was insane not stupid.  He’d looked away and Rey couldn't understand why he seemed so hurt. It’s not like he was any more qualified to be a parent than she was. It’s not like either of them were apt to be alive a year from now. 

\----------------------

Ben knew when he was being led into a trap.  He might never be the haggler that Rey was, but when the trader they were selling to not only agreed to take their rebuilt ship almost before he had fully seen the inside  _ and  _ offered to trade it for a craft that seemed more-or-less in one piece - something was seriously wrong.

“What the hell are you doing?  He’s got something up his sleeve.”  Ben had pulled Rey aside, hoping that it looked like they were just exchanging a few words, not that he was questioning her sanity.  He wasn’t expecting her to burst out laughing.

“You caught that too?”  People are looking their way so Rey swallows her laughter and stands on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.  “He absolutely has something up his sleeve but I’ve worn the same coat so it’s not going to work.” She links their hands together, and pulls him back to the main room.  “Trust me.” The words aren’t audible but he can feel them just as clearly as if she had shouted. 

The man hadn't been happy about it, but Rey knew how to strike a deal and two days later they were proud owners of a new ship.

\--------------------

“You didn’t say it would be  _ this  _ bad!”

“I believe the exact words I used were “worse than getting caught naked in a sandstorm without goggles.”

“Are you sure we can’t, I don’t know, use the force to seal the hull or something?”  Rey didn’t even bother to dignify that with a response.

It was the first day of the painstaking job of scraping, sanding, and priming the exterior of the ship.  Ben was never going to complain about how small the ship was again because right now he was certain that it was at least as big as a cruiser, maybe even a dreadnought.

“I used to help out with this for a few extra credits when people docked for repairs on Jakku.  Bigger ships use pretreated panels and replace those as needed. A ship this small needs to be resealed every few decades or you start getting problems due to interference with the navigation systems and jumps become downright suicidal.”

They had debated if it they should start on the top or bottom.  Rey suggested flipping a coin, then didn’t even try to hide the fact that she used the force to push the coin.  Which made Ben throw it at her head, to which she retaliated by tackling him… and it was another hour before they actually got to work.

“It’s bad enough if you just have to strip off the old coat of sealant and put down a new on.  But whoever the moron was that put on the last coat didn’t even try to scrape off the old layer and just slapped down new sealant cut with I don’t even know what.  The trader must have missed it when he got the ship, it’s not that hard to do if you haven’t seen it before, and then he was stuck with a ship that will take a month or better of backbreaking work just to get it ready to re-seal.  Hence his willingness to throw in the extra parts for free just to get rid of it.”

\------------------

When he went outside to check the whether on the morning of the second day Ben almost tripped over something sitting next to the ship’s ramp.

Almost before he could regain his balance the lump shifted and became a girl wrapped in a blanket who looked like she had slept there.

“I’ll scrape for five credits a day.  You need the help.” Ben was used to people looking at him out of the corners of their eyes and deciding that whatever they saw they didn’t like it.  Even shielding his force and trying to blend in didn’t always work. Rey said it was because he would never look like he had come from the outer rim. Personally, Ben thought it probably had more to do with the way he glared at anyone who stared at Rey for too long.  This child looked him straight in the eye and jutted her chin out to emphasise her words.

“Two credits a day.”  By now he knew better than to ask where her parents were.  Wherever they were, she was here. She narrows her eyes at him.

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Three and a half and I’ll find a few more kids and tell them you pay 2 credits a day.”  She smiles, “they’ll believe me.”

“Deal.”  They shake on it and Ben heads back inside.  It’s only as he’s clambering up the hull caring scrapers and wishing that he had a hat to keep the sun out of his eyes that he catches the thought that has been niggeling at the back of his brain.  The way she talked, the slight press behind her words; the girl was force sensitive.

\----------------

Her name turned out to be Kass and she showed up with half-a-dozen other children thirty minutes later.

“How many of you have done this before?”  A couple of hands went up. Rey took one look at the motley crew and assigned them nooks and crannies that were too small for either herself or him to fit easily into.

“Just keep scraping until your arms fall off.  We only pay for a full day’s work”

\-------------------

Rey wasn’t terribly surprised by the arrival of their “helpers.”  Every port town had a pack of children who were willing to work for a few credits a day.  Some probably had families but others were definitely surviving on their own. All of them had the look of people who never took a meal for granted.  She’s been one of them often enough.

By mid morning she had worked herself into an exhaust port which was angled in such a way that that she had to wedge her legs under a pipe and hang almost upside down to reach the surface.  It was hot, gritty, mind numbing work that was best endured by turning your mind off and stubbornly ignoring your screaming muscles. At least she was in the shade. Rey had no idea how long she had been there when she was startled out of her concentration by voices below her.

“You really fought a rancor?  All by yourself? Is that how did you got the scar?”

Ben was working his way across the port side of the ship and, despite all of their previous assignments, all of the children had somehow ended up working in the same area.

“Oh no, the rancor didn’t get a single scratch on me.  These I got the time I fought her.” Ben jerks his thumb towards where Rey is half hidden.  There is a kid sitting on his shoulders and every last one of them are hanging on his every word.

“Is she really that mean?”  The boy probably  _ thought  _ that he was being quiet and just Ben laughs.

“Only when you cross her.”

“Ohhhh”

Ben keeps talking, spinning stories that have only a tangential relationship to their actual adventures.  He’s telling them about a snow covered planet and monsters that burrow under the ice and pop up to drag you under by your feet.  He pauses to lift one girl up so she can perch on a ledge to work her way around a window and then later to switch which child is sitting on his shoulders (it seems to be a much coveted spot.)

He’s good with children.  The thought hits her with the force of a blaster shot.  There is a grin on Ben’s face as he waves his hands around to mimic the way that the ship rocked back and forth the time when they lost the left engine.  The thought had honestly never occurred to her before. 

They move so much, often spending long stretches of time just the two of them working side by side.  Even when they land and stay somewhere for a few days or a week Ben was often quiet, hanging back and letting her take the lead.  Right now though, with a group of children using him as a ladder and sunburn across his neck - he looks happy. 

She’s not sure how long she sits there staring before she realizes that she’s stopped working and forces her hands to get back to work.

\-----------------

“I have to talk to her.  She deserves to know.”

“Knowing you’re force sensitive is about as useful as learning that you’re…  oh I don't know, the point is it’s not going to help her any!”

“It helped you plenty!” 

“It got me stuck with you!”

“Well I always thought that was a perk not a flaw.”

They should be exhausted after a grueling day of painting.  Even with their helpers it had taken the better part of three weeks to get the ship ready and it was going to take another several days to fully seal it.  Instead of tired though they were both too wound up to sleep, and that nervous exhaustion was getting channeled into rehashing what had become a running argument.

“You tell her anything and she knows who we are.  There’s not exactly a lot of force trained folks running around anymore!”

“AND IF I DON’T WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO USE HER SHOWS UP?”  Ben is pacing the ship. “I can’t just leave her to be somebody’s pawn.” Rey can hear the desperation in his voice.

“She isn’t you Ben.  Snoke is dead.”

“There is always someone else.”  His voice cracks and Rey can’t stand it.  She goes to him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“I just want to…”  
“I know.  You have a big heart Ben, you know that?”  He buries his face in her hair, and she holds on even tighter as she feels him shaking with tears and exhaustion.  “Just think very carefully about what she actually needs, Ben. She isn’t you. She needs to survive, she doesn't need a war that she’s probably never even heard of before.”

“Will you help me talk to her?”  Rey sighs, then nods.


	5. Chapter 5

**One day before:**

Luke frowns as he absently runs his fingers over the seam of his cloak.  The crate he was sitting on had been lashed to the wall of the cargo bay and behind his back was a med kit that looked like it hadn't been opened since before Master Yoda was born. 

“Just a couple more hours and we’ll be landing.  You sure this is where you want? There’s not much there.”  

“The man knows what he wants Red.  Although, I gotta say, I’ve never had a trip go so smooth before.  I swear you’re a good luck charm!” 

He likes the two young men in front of him.  They both slouch against the wall as if trying to keep it from crumbling (and given the state of the ship, that might be exactly what they were doing.)  Brothers, or so he assumes, with matching mops of uncombed hair hair and a burning dislike of both newcomers and safety regulations. They eked out a living making supply runs and transporting equipment for settlers in this sector and a handful of credits had helped overcome their aversion to passengers.  

Oh to be young again, with the galaxy in front of you and someone beside you to bicker with…  Shaking his head at such maudlin thoughts he smiled at the boys.

“I’ll be fine.  I’m good at avoiding trouble.”

“I bet you are mister.”  Red punches the shorter man’s shoulder and jerks his chin to communicate something about the front of the ship.  The other makes a face then nods.

“Might want to strap in.  This landing always comes up fast.”

As they move away he can hear the half grumbled whisper of, “That’s just because you can’t see straight....”  and then a yelp when offence is taken.

“But trouble isn’t always so good at avoiding me…”  He knows that talking to himself is one more sign of his quickly approaching status as being “older than dirt.”  He actually finds himself missing those darn porgs they, at least, never seemed to mind his muttering. 

It was indeed a bumpy landing.

**Present:**

It’s strange seeing Ben and Luke together.  They have a similar feel, something familiar in the way that the force winds through them and she doesn't like it.  Doesn't like anything about the grey haired man standing across from her. So she stands tall, chin squared, staff ready.  He told her that she was full of darkness, that she would bring trouble and pain. Well, if he made one move toward Ben she would show him the true meaning of pain...

“Rey, could you maybe stop trying to push me out of this ship with your mind?  I’ve got a pretty strong shield but it’s tiring at my age.” She hadn't realized she was doing that.  She let up - somewhat.

\--------------------------

“The two strongest force users I’ve ever seen and neither of you even has a lightsaber.  The old masters would weep.”

“Why are you here?”  It was hard to reconcile the man in front of him with the boy Luke had once known.  Luke supposed that that he could hardly blame his nephew for being wary. Personally Luke was surprised enough that they were still talking; the person he had expected to find would have done his best to separate Luke’s head from his body at the first sight of his old teacher.  The person who Luke had watched spar ten minutes ago almost certainly would have been able to do it. And then there was Rey.

“Well, someone came to my nice quiet hideaway shouting that the world needs me.  Interrupted my busy schedule and everything.” 

Of the two of them it was Rey who radiated open hostility - hostility and power.  When he had first met the girl she had been utterly untrained, a chaotic tangle of fear, and raw power, and pain.  That person was gone. Now she stood beside Ben, staff at the ready, and stared at him with unflinching eyes. 

“And you told me that it wasn’t your problem, that you didn't give a damn.” He found that couldn't meet those eyes.

“Rey, you have to understand.  It’s not like the Jedi order has done much to recommend itself lately.  For all the talk of light and goodness, whenever the shit hits the fan there always seems to be  jedi somewhere close by with his pants down.” For an instant he thought he saw the slightest twitch of Ben’s mouth.  

(Everyone assumed that it was Han with the dirty mouth; they were wrong.  Luke still remember the exact phrase that his sister had used when she stepped on piece of scrap metal that went through her boot.  It hadn't been very long after he he first met her and it had shocked him enough to hear a girl swear let alone describe a rather physically improbable act that she was going to do to the person who had left the spike laying around.  Good memories. At least he still had those.) 

“I failed.  I failed you Ben,” He can still feel it.  They call it a force vision, but vision is the wrong word.  He  _ felt it _ .  Every action, every death, the feeling of evil crawling over him.  All tangled together with the sleeping form of his nephew laying ten feet away.  He had felt it all and in response he had committed his own act of unforgivable evil.  “And I thought that it was time to stop pretending that… It was just time to stop.”

“What changed?”  

Rey’s force felt like a desert; vast and deadly if you were foolish enough to be caught in its path, but under that harshness it teemed with life and color.  The last time he saw Rey he had told her that she scared him, that the dark was too strong in her. It was true, she would never have made a Jedi, but for all her anger he couldn’t feel cruelty or a hunger for power.  Mostly he felt protectiveness. Protective of what? Her life? This ship? The man beside her? Luke looked between the two of them, and past them around the cabin, trying to understand.

“Well for one, you two made swiss cheese of my damn force vision.  I saw was what was supposed to happen and then it didn’t.” They were sleeping together, that much he had expected.  Hell, half the galaxy thought they were some kind of love story for the ages. Love story… oh…

“Then I got mad at ghost and watched a bonfire, not to mention drag my damn ship out of the water - and let me tell you, it’s not easy getting mold out of upholstery!”

It wasn’t the one bed with two pillows, or the mixed clothes tossed in odd corners.  That just meant that there were two people living in close proximity who both had average human hormone levels.  It wasn’t that Ben was clearly teaching her how to use the force. There were still people in the resistance who believed that Kylo Ren had used some dark Sith trick and stolen Rey away so he could twist her into his apprentice.  (The majority had the more pragmatic opinion that she’d been dark all along. “They deserve each other, and I can’t wait to get my blasters on the both of them!” was the heartfelt, if tremendously ambitious, feeling that one young fighter had expressed in the mess hall across the table from him.)

It was the way he watched her.  In the whole time they had been talking Ben had never let her out of his sight, even when he was looking at Luke, he kept Rey in the corner of his eye.  It was the way she moved with him. In the whole time they had been talking she kept her eyes on Luke, but she matched Ben move for move, keeping Luke between them, keeping her staff ready, setting them up to work together if this turned into a fight - all without ever once looking in his direction.  

“So after I got the mildew stains out of the seat of my pants I went and listened to your mother scold me for leaving, and somehow I ended up promising her I’d find you.”

He had wondered.  Was it was fate, or lust, or the darkside, or just good old Skywalker stupidity - what was it was that was determined to bind the fates of these two young people together?  

Officially, he was in pursuit of two wanted fugitives, criminals against the Alliance.  That had been two years ago. Two years of chasing ghosts. Hoping from one shit hole to another and waiting for some cataclysm, or evil plan, or hell - someone using the force to give him indigestion.  Only nothing happened. 

Now here they were.  In a old ship, that was filled with salvaged gear, spare parts, and two people who were clearly in love with each other.  Two people who hadn't done anything worse than skirt some import-export laws a bit. (He had spent quite long enough on the Millennium Falcon to know what a smuggling hatch looked like.  Some things never change.) 

A Sith with an empire’s worth of blood on his lightsaber and a force user who, Sith or not, would never be a Jedi.  Too powerful by half, the both of them. 

They could have ruled the galaxy.  That would have been easy. But this - spending their lives running, working for every day they did survie, making everywhere and nowhere their home - this was not.

He could tell himself that they were both evil.  Just one dark moment away from snapping and wreaking havoc that would make Snoke look like a good guy.  That this could be his final, greatest, battle; to die defeating the danger he created. That would have been easy to believe.      

“There’s light in him, I felt it!”  

He can still remember the boy who had been brave enough to believe that.  When had that boy become this haggered, old, man? Killing was easy, fear was easy, anger was easy.  Maybe that’s what the old Jedis had been trying to teach all along. 

He had been doing the easy thing for far too long.

“It’s not ever going to be easy for you two.  You know that right? People have long memories when they are scared.”

“When has it ever been easy?  People were afraid of me since before I was born.”  There isn’t bitterness in Ben’s voice so much as resignation.

\--------------------

It was the hardest thing that Luke had ever done, to turn and walk out of that door.  Because some part of him still wanted to save the galaxy from what they could become, or because he wanted so desperately to put his arms around his nephew one more time, he wasn’t sure.  Probably both. 

He only turned to look back only once.  They were standing beside each other on the ramp of the ship.  The sun was rapidly sinking and for just a moment the light caught their faces, framing them in blazing light.  For one moment Luke could almost see the twin suns of Tatooine. A good omen or ill? He turned away and kept walking.     

Fear is easy,  _ hope _ is not.

**Author's Note:**

> The bits about scraping down the ship were loosely based on my real life the experience of having to take down wallpaper that the last owners of the house had put up with Elmer's glue. It was not a fun job.


End file.
